


To Hatch a Crow, a Black Rainbow

by coveredsnow



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Injury Recovery, Parent Tony Stark, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-09 22:06:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18647008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredsnow/pseuds/coveredsnow
Summary: The universe was done with Tony. His family were not.The funeral has passed. Pepper's freezer is full of May Parker's lasagna, and likely to remain so for a very long time. Happy lulls Morgan to sleep with stories of her dad. And deep in the bowels of 177A Bleecker Street, Stephen Strange is working desperately to keep Tony Stark clinging to life.





	To Hatch a Crow, a Black Rainbow

Tony didn’t exactly become aware of being awake. He drifted from one layer of nausea to another, until the fire burning half his body became intense enough that a part of him registered that this might constitute consciousness.

He opened his mouth to scream. Only his mouth didn’t open, and he couldn’t scream, so he thought that perhaps he wasn’t awake after all.

Seconds or hours later, he strung together his next coherent thought, which was, ‘This hurts more than being alive.’

That felt momentous, so he spent a while turning it over, focussing on each word, giving the sentence a capital letter and correct punctuation in his mind. Every time he started to forget what those words meant when strung together, he would drag himself back to the beginning of the sentence, and weigh them one at a time, in order. ‘ _This. Hurts. More. Than. Being. Alive._ ’

A while later, after drifting in and out of awareness – in more lucid moments his stomach rolled, but when he dropped several layers deeper the pervading sense of  _wrong_  seemed to dwell within his bones – he wondered what he meant by that. So he probed his thoughts, and then opened his non-existent mouth to scream again as the fire, white-hot fire, flashed in the right of his head, and then surged in a series of excruciating explosions down the length of his body, until he couldn’t feel a body anymore, just pain, extending in tendrils from where his consciousness refused to stop existing. Yes. This hurt more than being alive.

But now he remembered some of what being alive was. This hurt worse than … shrapnel. This hurt worse than … palladium poisoning. Worse than … suffocating. Worse than hypothermia.

Being alive, from the shards and splinters he remembered, didn’t seem great. In fact, a lack of life seemed pretty peachy in comparison.

Only now he was starting to worry that that was what this was.

He didn’t believe in an afterlife. He didn’t, did he? His mind flailed around for a second, panicked with no anchor, and he tried to cry out again as pain crashed over him in a sickening wave, but he remembered now, he _knew_ , that no, he didn’t. Had sat through the few church services his mother had dragged him to, until … someone had put a stop to that. He couldn’t remember who, but he was afraid to try, afraid to agitate the fire that was holding him prisoner. He’d never believed in any of it. It had seemed like the fumblings of the desperate and the scared, worried that if they looked at evidence rather than tradition they would discover answers that didn’t hold their hands in the dark. And if there was no heaven, then there was no hell, and …

And he wouldn’t be here, mind flayed open with no body answering to his thoughts, and his thoughts barely qualifying as

For a long time after that effort, he existed only as a raw nerve. When his consciousness next asserted itself, it was with the vague notion of having left something unfinished, but he wasn’t sure what. _Hell_ , was the only word he could come up with. _Hell_.

He decided to scream again. He couldn’t hear anything, and the space where he thought his throat and mouth should be registered nothing but fire, so he didn’t know if he was screaming. But the effort, the thought, the _direction_ of a scream, gave him something to focus on, something other than the fire.

He imagined screaming, and screaming, and screaming, and nothing changed, but the thought of screaming seemed to keep him from the place where he could feel the wrongness in his bones, rather than just his stomach, so he didn’t stop.

Then he was choking. He sputtered, and coughed; something was drowning him, which made sense, he realised, because he was being tortured, this was Hell.

 _Swallow_.

The voice was deep and rang through his mind, so shocking that for a moment Tony forgot to choke, forgot to try to breathe.

_If you can understand this, swallow. You’re making your throat raw. I don’t expect you to stop screaming, but I need you to drink something to lessen the damage. Swallow_ _._

This time, it didn’t feel like an instruction. It had echoes of a demand, and without being sure he’d intended it, Tony felt a contraction where his throat should be. Then he wasn’t choking anymore. But his throat was still on fire, so the voice might be lying about drink. The voice. Suddenly Tony realised what he was thinking. A voice inside his mind. He was insane. He started laughing. Or tried to, but there were bands around his chest, tight and getting tighter, which only made it harder to stop the screams of laughter he’d have let out if sound were possible or if his body were real and

The next time he became aware of consciousness, he couldn’t feel anything.

Which should have been nice, but now he could only think in small circles, in small circles of darkness.  _where am I who am I who am where I am who where am who I where I am who I where_ tighter and tighter and tighter until suddenly he was pulled up, bursting from the surface into the fire and searing reality of non-reality, and he wished for the darkness again.

His next full thought was to wonder whether the fire was easing up, or whether it had just burnt through all his nerves. Then he wondered whether he’d always be blind in Hell. Then he realised that that was two thoughts in a row, and now a third.

The left side of his body wasn’t on fire. Before, the pain of his right had numbed out any consideration of his left. His left still  _ached_ , still felt like it was made of thick, goopy liquid rather than living being, but it wasn’t burning.

Maybe they saved that side for later. Maybe there was a rotation system.

He half-believed that the pain was sentient, that if he moved a finger on his left hand it would realise that it had missed a spot and come to finish him off, but he had to try, just in case any of him was still human.

His left index finger moved.

‘Tony?’

Fear froze him. They had noticed, and there would be consequences –

‘Tony, if you can hear me, this is Dr Stephen Strange talking.’

Dr Stephen Strange. Tony ran that name through his mind several times, but made careful effort not to probe his memory. If recognition came, it would come. He wasn’t going to risk another surge of flame. The name was familiar, though. And … a doctor. Relief, giddy, like a drug, seeped through him. A doctor. He wasn’t in Hell. Of course not. He was sick, or injured, but he was here, he was alive. He wanted to cry, but he pushed down the urge, deeper and deeper, certain it would aggravate the fire. He was  _alive_.

The relief was short-lived. If he was alive … what on Earth could have done this to him?

‘If you can hear me and you are able, raise your left index finger again, twice.’ Tony obliged. He couldn’t make out any texture beneath the pad of his finger, but pressure then no pressure then pressure again, that he could feel. And it didn’t hurt to move it. A swell of _wrong_ travelled along his arm, but it was bearable, barely registering against the rest of his pain.

‘Good. That’s good. I don’t want you to try to move any more than that.’ There was a scratching sound, and once Tony placed it, he was frightened by how long it had taken him to do so. A pen on paper. ‘Don’t try to talk, either. You have severe injuries, concentrated on your right side. I’m … still in the process of understanding them; for the moment, just keep as still as possible. Raise your finger if you understand.’ Tony did so, pulse thundering in his ears.  _How severe_ , he wanted to scream?  _What injuries? What happened?_

‘Raise your finger once for yes, and twice for no. Do you believe yourself to be suffering from amnesia?’  _Tap_. ‘That’s not unexpected. I’ll try to fill in some gaps, but you’ll have to be patient. I know you’re an intelligent man, Tony, not to mention a part-time asshole, so I won’t patronise you. I don’t know whether you will be able to retain these new memories.’  _Tap tap tap tap tap tap_ ‘No need to panic. You are in exceptionally capable hands, and I am optimistic that your ability to do so will return. But you will have to be patient with yourself.’ Panic clawed its way up Tony’s throat, as he remembered the stifling darkness, the small circles of thought, the deep wrong feeling and knowing nothing but uncertainty and he had to get out out of there he ha d tog et out ‘Shit.’ And he was drifting, drift …

The next thing he knew, he was drowsy, and he was being flayed, skin peeling off piece by piece, flesh open to a desert storm, with a terrifying dark coldness creeping up from underneath.  _Raise your finger_ , he remembered, and he did so, although not knowing why.

‘Tony?’ A voice. ‘Tony, I had to put you under. A panic attack would tax your delicate system.’  _Panic attack? Whose voice?_  ‘I’m sorry if any of this is old news. My name is Dr Stephen Strange. I am responsible for your medical care. You have suffered severe injuries. But I will see to your recovery.’  _Recovery? How? Would the muscles be stitched back onto his bones, blood vessels threaded through reformed tissue, skin layered on like chrome and paint?_   _There couldn’t be anything left, anything but the pain_   _…_  ‘Do not be alarmed that you cannot see.’ He hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t … there was so much noise in his skull, hot silent noise that buffeted against all attempts at thought, but of course, he could usually  _see_. With a sick lurch of his stomach, he wondered what else he was forgetting. ‘I believe that any additional sensory information would be a strain, so I’m afraid that you will not be able to open your eyes for the near future.’ Tony tapped once for yes. He was afraid of what he might see. Afraid of what he looked like with half a body.

‘Do you remember how you got these injuries, Tony? Tap twice for no.’ _Tap, tap._ A sigh. ‘I want you to tap your finger every time I say “stop” – like that, yes – so I know that you are still lucid and following me. I’m afraid this will take a while to explain.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to do this story justice, so while posting this first chapter is a commitment to completion which I take very seriously, it might be a little while before updates become regular. Please let me know if you liked this!
> 
> If you would like a finished story, I recently completed a [de-aged Tony Stark fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16441238/chapters/38498054), featuring the sort of fluffy angsty domestic Avengers you probably fancy if you clicked on this. And if you want something lighter, I'm currently posting a [Peter-Parker-Field-Trip fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18432635/chapters/43663406) that is more comedy than angst. Much love <3


End file.
